Monaca asks Center to get moving, offers game plan on merger talks

MONACA — The Center Area School Board is still pondering questions about a proposed merger with the neighboring Monaca School District.

Monaca’s board has one message in response: Let’s speed things up a bit.

Late last week, the Monaca board dispatched a letter — prepared by Superintendent Michael Thomas — urging its counterparts in Center to pick up the pace of merger-related meetings between the districts and on the building-use options the Center board is considering.

The letter was in response to Center Area’s public meeting on April 17, when Center Area Superintendent Daniel Matsook said his board was considering two options — either moving all of a merged district’s students to Center Area’s buildings or the original plan approved by both boards last fall, which calls for using Monaca Junior-Senior High School as a middle school for a new district.

“Studies conducted by outside consultants and the superintendents indicate that in addition to the educational benefits, the merger provides substantial economic benefits,” Thomas said in the letter, which was addressed to Richard Nicastro, the Center Area board president. “While (Monaca) appreciates the efforts of the Center board to further analyze specific components of the merger, the Monaca board believes that it is essential that the two districts once again begin to work cooperatively to move the merger process forward.”

There have been a handful of meetings of members of the boards since Center’s new board took office in December, but most have involved only two members of each board. And in a letter he distributed to his board members in January, Center Area’s Nicastro said there would be no meeting between the two merger committees — or the two superintendents — without his approval.

Nicastro did not return a call seeking comment; William Temple, Monaca’s board president, said he was pleased that Center Area’s board had its first public discussion on the issue but was ready to see more action alongside the discussion.

“The biggest thing I want to see is to go ahead with the state board’s hearing,” Temple said. “That will give us the guidance to let us move ahead, without having to make a solid commitment, and it would give the public another chance for input.

“Mostly, I want to get this moving,” Temple said. “We’ve been sitting around for too long.”

Michael Pound can be reached online at mpound@timesonline.com.

TO THE LETTER

In a letter to the Center Area School Board last week, Monaca School Superintendent Michael Thomas said meetings on a potential merger of the two districts should resume prior to each district’s regular May meetings.

He also said:

•The districts should grant permission for the state Board of Education to conduct its required hearing on the merger.

•The districts should commission a panel to make a binding decision on the best plan for building use.

•Center Area School Superintendent Daniel Matsook and Thomas should be permitted to establish deadlines for upcoming decisions.

•The districts should continue working to see that the new district could continue to levy Center’s mercantile tax, which brings in about $330,000 annually.

CONSULTANTS TO RETURN

The two consultants who studied — and supported — the Center-Monaca merger will attend the next Center board meeting to help answer board members’ questions about the proposal.

Center Superintendent Daniel Matsook said Dan Dancu — of Butler-based Ingraham-Dancu Associates — and Donald Boyer — of Harrisburg-based Education Management Group — will attend the board’s meeting May 8 to address questions about facilities utilization and the finances associated with the merger.

Dancu’s firm studied the facilities of both districts and population and enrollment trends in Monaca and Center and Potter townships; Boyer’s firm studied the finances associated with the merger plan.

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